I’m getting considerably more email from people I don’t know these days, which has me wondering about the ways people address one another. Hence, a poll:
All of the serious answers are risky:
1) Not all doctors are professors.
2) Not all professors are doctors.
3) Some misters and mizzes strongly prefer to be doctors or professors.
4) Many people react poorly to the automatic first-name basis.
5) Some dawgs you shouldn’t “Hey.”
It’s tricky.
If I am unsure of the proper greeting, then I would address the email as:
Dear firstname lastname
That avoids the issue of Dr vs professor. In the case of gender neutral names it also avoids the issue of Mr/Ms/Mrs
I usually try to find some web presence for them, and get an idea from that.
“Dr. Lastname” is the default greeting for many journal editorial staff, precisely to avoid the risk of calling a non-professor “Prof. Lastname” (the “Dr. Lastname” title is almost always correct for professors in my field as they generally have a Ph.D. or equivalent). But occasionally this default goes astray, particularly when the corresponding author is a grad student. Well before I completed my Ph.D. I got letters from journals that were addressed to “Dr. Lund”.
It really depends.
If I am trying to get a copy of a paper you wrote, I’d probably use “Dear Professor Orzel”.
However, if I was writing something to you regarding the blog, I’d probably go with “Hi, Chad”.
… I mean I picked Dr because in my field I’d almost never be wrong. But really, I’d google-fu the person I’m emailing to find out the correct answer.
I tell my freshman students that few people at a university will be offended by being addressed as “Dr. Soandso”, but Dr. Soandso will probably be at least somewhat annoyed by being addressed as “Mr.”, “Ms.” or “Mrs.”.
As a female Dr., I’m infuriated when students address me as Mrs. Redfield.
Hello,
I pretend that e-mail is casual spoken conversation and open informally. For formal e-mails, I pretend I’m a spider and open with “Greetings and salutations…”
Yo, Dawg,
Wut up?
I figure Dr. Lastname is safe (assuming I can check if the indivudual is a PhD online), then it’d go with Ms/Mr Lastname. But it also depends on the reason for the email, if I were emailing you about something on the blog I’d probably go with “Hi Chad”, like Ahcuah.
For what it’s worth, I agree with Ahcuah and marciepooh. It’s situational.
Ron – “pretend I’m a spider” – ftw!
I hate using Dear for someone is not dear. It has always struck me as cheap. I only use dear if I can sign off love and still feel good.
I like numbers one and two – assuming it’s a formal, never met before type of thing. Plus, there’s usually a polite way to inquire as to the way in which they are likely to prefer being addressed – either by finding a way to contact their department or secretary or something beforehand, or by asking in the email/letter.
I always go back to the 19th century:
Dear Sir or Madam,
Get the best idea of what they are and go from that. Err on the side of “Dr.” if I’m not sure, because it’s probably better than erring on the side of “Professor” and being wrong.
I try to find out from their faculty webpage. When it doubt, I use “professor” as the least-risky option. If it’s not in an academic context (ie, communicating with someone in industry who may or may not have a doctorate) I use Mr./Ms. I think that’s the local minimum of risk of offending.
“Dear Dr. So-and-so” because even if they aren’t doctors, people are rarely upset to be called that. More likely, the reply will include something like “I don’t have a doctorate, but thank you” and, if I’m lucky, either an explicit note of what they do want to be called, or signed in a way that makes it clear. (If they write back to me with “Hi, Vicki” and sign it “Chris,” the next one is going to be “Hi, Chris” or maybe “Dear Chris.”) Or they’ll say “It’s Ms. Jones.”
This also saves me from guessing wrong on gender: there are few if any given names that are _unambiguously_ gendered, and people are more likely to be upset by being misgendered than by being assumed to have a doctorate.
Well…I have been known to use, “Dear (insert appropriate honorific here) Lastname”. As far as I know, I haven’t offended anybody thereby, and have amused several.
Dear firstname lastname, like #1. In the music world, there are plenty of professors who do not have doctorates (PhD or DMA), and some who don’t even have masters’ degrees. If I have heard that this person is very formal, I will go with Prof. lastname. And any subsequent emails are usually dictated by how the person addresses me and signs his/her own email. I always sign mine with just my first name, unless I’m emailing a student. Then I sign it SS.
Greetings, Human!
About 25 years ago I received lots of snail-mail letters from strangers in my capacity as research staff, and was generally addressed as either Professor or Doctor. (I was a “Mister” on the office floor directory.) I’m not sure which was more common – lots of each. I had it explained to innocent little me that some people were very sensitive about this. (On a different note I remember an incident where a professor freaked when he requested a female research staff member do some shit-work for him and she refused. His response was to yell “I am a professor!” repeatedly.)
In e-mail I would probably tend to be less formal and omit the formal salutation. But it’s hard for me to imagine sending e-mail to someone and not either already knowing the proper salutation or being able to (here in the future) trivially find out.
Otherwise, I think Cuttlefish has the right idea.
My rule is to respond the same way I was approached.
If I am approached with “Dear Wolfgang” then I answer with “Dear Ann” , if I am approached with “Hi” then I respond with “Hi” etc.
Personally, I prefer the 419 greeting:
“Dear Respected One,
GREETINGS,
Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you…”
I agree that it depends on the situation. As a reader of your pretty informal blog, I’m inclined to use “Hi Chad” with regard to blog stuff.
This poll begs the question: What do you prefer?
Since when do you put salutations in email? They aren’t in RFC 733. (That shows you how old I am.)